


Our Golden Age

by Ladderofyears



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Bereaved Scorpius, Eventual Happy Ending, Grief, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Original Character(s), Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Regrets, Sexually Explicit Flashbacks, Sixty Year Old Scorpius and Albus, Tears, mention of OC death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:20:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26086363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladderofyears/pseuds/Ladderofyears
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy is sixty years old and has just lost his wife Cecily after a long marriage. His best-friend of many decades Albus Potter comes to stay with him at Malfoy Manor.
Relationships: Scopius Malfoy/OFC, Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45
Collections: Scorbus Fest 2020





	Our Golden Age

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the mods of this lovely fest. This is my first year participating in the Scorbus Fest but I've enjoyed all the fics from the previous two years. Long may it continue! 
> 
> 🐍🐍

“I’ve had the Elves made up the Green Bedroom for you,” Scorpius said as he led his friend through the twisty, winding corridors of Malfoy Manor. He looked back over his shoulder to make sure that Albus was keeping up. “It’s in the East Wing so it’s lovely and bright in the mornings. 

Albus didn’t reply. He was too busy trying to orientate himself. Every wall was covered in portraits of illustrious Malfoys of the past, expensive antiques and exquisite tapestries. The ancient magic was infused into the very stones of the building and tickled at the edges of his consciousness. 

Al had been Scorpius’s best-friend for the nearly half a century but he still didn’t quite know his way around the Manor. 

“The East Wing was Cecily's last decorating project,” Scorpius said, just as the pair finally arrived at a grand, dark green entrance. With a flick of ‘Pius’s wand the door opened. Albus came eye to eye with a confection of flowery wallpaper and a bed covered with more pillows than any wizard could possibly need in a lifetime. It put his own scruffy, cluttered apartment, located in a shadowy alleyway near Diagon Alley to utter shame. 

The room was entirely Cecily Malfoy-Arnoult: tasteful, understated and refined. It was everything that he, Albus Severus Potter, was not. 

Albus put his bags down on the floor and looked over at Scorpius. He’d lost weight since Cecily's untimely death only two months before. His thin face was lined and his long hair was silver in the wintery light. His characteristic black robes hung off his body. Scorpius looked every day of his sixty years. 

“I’ll make us both a drink,” Scorpius said, his voice falsely bright. “Something warm to wake us both up! I’ve been feeling the cold these last few years, Al. Living in this big, draughty place. You know that Orion wants me to sell up? Wants me to move over to the USA to be with him and Erin… Seems such a shame though. It’s been in the Malfoy family-”

“For _generations_ ,” Albus interrupted, his voice gentle. Scorpius had never lost the habit of rambling whenever he felt discomfited. “I know the tale. I’d love a drink if you’re willing. If you could find your way to adding a few drops of Firewhisky that’d be grand. Send up an Elf to find me if you would, Scorp. Even after all these years the Manor is still a bloody labyrinth.”

Scorpius nodded and then he vanished out of the door. 

Albus let out a long, steady breath. 

This was the first time that Scorpius and he had been alone since Cecily had died of a surprise bout of Scrofungulus the previous summer. Scorpius and he had sat together at the funeral, and they had shared a few meals since, but that had always been in the company of others–James and his wife, or Orion, Scorpius’s son–but this was the first occasion that Scorpius and he had found themselves left to their own devices. Albus hadn’t stayed over at the Manor in decades. The long days where Scorpius and he had played Quidditch on their brooms, read on the settee together and built snowmen in the frigid Manor grounds were a whole lifetime ago. 

Albus was interrupted from his daydreams by a sharp knock on his door. 

He creaked it open and there stood Essie, an Elf that had worked at the Manor since Scorpius and he had been children of only eleven. She was bent and wrinkled, but she gave Al a warm smile. “Master Scorpius has finished making the tea,” she said in a reedy, wheezy voice. “Master Scorpius asked me to take you down to the Kitchens.” 

Albus followed Essie down the stairs. The Manor Kitchens were still as homely and as comfortable as they had been when Al had stayed for the summers, so many years before. A bright fire burnt in the hearth and Scorpius was stood at the cracked mahogany table. He was just pouring the first cup of tea as Albus entered. The sweet scent of bergamot and vanilla filled the room. 

“Still drinking the Earl Grey?” Albus smiled, nodding toward the drinks. Scorpius had filled a plate with shortbread and Al slid into a seat at the table. “Still the same posh git you were at Hogwarts, ‘Pius. You were the only Slytherin that insisted on bringing your own tea-bags into the Great Hall.”

“Better than that _detergent_ you used to call coffee,” Scorpius replied, sliding a full cup in front of Albus. “I couldn’t ever understood how you could stomach the stuff. One–no, two!–cups and only then you were able to face Potions. As I recall you were neither use nor bloody ornament without them.” 

Scorpius and he laughed, shaking their heads at the still so vivid memories. Each and every Hogwarts morning had been exactly the same. The two of them had been as thick as thieves, sharing their homework and their revision notes. 

‘Pius and he had been inseparable. Two sides of the same sickle. 

Their friendship had been all-consuming and impassioned. Their friendship had been Albus’s everything. His sun and his moon. From the first day that they had met there’d never been anybody else for him except Scorpius. Albus took a long swallow of his tea. It was sweet and perfumed, undercut with the treacly heat of the whisky tickling his throat.

“I could get used to this,” Al admitted, placing the cup back in its saucer as he sank back into his chair. “How are you holding up, ‘Pius? You’ve lost a couple of stone since Cecily passed. You’re more skin and bloody bone than ruddy wizard now.”

‘Pius huffed at that description and he gave Albus his most haughty Malfoy glance. 

“We’re not all blessed with hearty Potter genes,” Scorpius replied, placing his cup down cautiously. He sighed. “Doesn’t seem much point in settling down to eat my dinners now there isn’t anyone to share them with… Orion and Erin are halfway around the world with their kids.” Scorpius paused and Albus saw that tears had welled up in his milky grey eyes. “Dad had been gone these past ten years and now Cecily has passed on. I thought when I lost Mum knew what loneliness was, but I was only a child then. Wet behind the ruddy _ears_. Didn’t understand how grief could gnaw into you.”

Albus lent over and gave his friend’s lithe shoulder a quick squeeze. “I was there when you lost your Mum,” he said, “and I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”

It wasn’t as if Albus had anywhere else to be. He hadn’t a brilliant career that he couldn’t take time away from. He was a Wandmaker in a small business on Knockturn, but he was merely competent: workmanlike and nothing special. He wasn’t participially talented at the work. Albus hadn’t ever been married either. There wasn’t a special other that Albus couldn’t bear to be parted from. There’d been a couple of men over the course of his lifetime but each of those relationships had withered and died after a few years had passed. 

When Scorpius had sent his owl and said that he needed him here, Albus had taken the first available Portkey. 

“What has Essie made us up for our dinner?” Albus asked, hoping to brighten Scorpius’s mood. “That was my whole reason for coming here, if you must know,” he teased. “Come to experience how the other half lives. I’m hoping for sautéed vegetables, roasted potatoes… Beef so tender that it’ll melt in my mouth.”

Scorpius gave him a sly glance across the table. “You always did think with your belly before your brain, Albus Potter. You look like you could stand to lose a stone or two.”

Albus feigned a wounded look and then patted his rotund pot belly. The pounds had piled on his middle mercilessly since his early fifties and Al supposed he was quite the portly gentleman now. His hair, as wild and unkempt as always, was as grey as a storm cloud now. His vision was as poor now as his Father’s ever had been. 

Ageing made very little sense. Albus’s heart and imagination still felt exactly the same now as they ever had in his twenties, yet all he recognised in the mirror nowadays were his sparkly green eyes, same as his Father and his Grandfather before him, and the same quirk of a smile. 

“Staying here will help shift me the pounds,” Albus jested. He reached over and took one of the shortbread biscuits in his hand. He bit into it, enjoying the crumble of the pasty and the way it melted on his tongue. “Though not if you feed me up like his,” he admitted after he had swallowed the biscuit. “Perhaps we could go for a walk around the grounds. We could take out our brooms and have a ride through the sky. It must be a dozen years since we flew.”

Scorpius raised a sceptical eyebrow at that suggestion. “Hardly the done thing, Albus,” he scoffed. “Two old men, swooping through the sky. Flying is a young man’s game. Not for the likes of us.”

Albus couldn’t help but smile at that reply. His best-friend was still the consummate Malfoy, straight-backed, his bearing regal and stiff. Scorpius’s whole life had been a battle to make his father proud and pleased. He’d lived nearly every moment of his nearly sixty years on the earth trying to live up to his family name and their traditions. 

Now, even though he was finally alone, Scorpius was still striving for decorum. 

“We wouldn’t have to go high or very far,” Albus disagreed. He sipped his rapidly cooling tea. Maybe it was the Firewhiskey making him brave but something compelled him to speak. “Remember how it was when we were boys? How a day would pass us by in the blink of an eye? How we’d play, and we’d laugh until our bellies hurt and the sun was setting? We always swore that we’d live like that forever.”

Scorpius shook his head at Al’s reminisces. “A single drop of Firewhisky and you’re anyone's, Albus.” He picked up a piece of shortbread but he didn’t eat it. He broke off the end of the biscuit, spilling crumbs onto the scratched, pockmarked wood of the table. “Life isn’t some schoolboy fantasy,” Scorpius mocked, though his words carried no heat. “Even then my life was never my own. It belonged to my Father. My destiny was written for me before I was born. Betrothal to an heiress of my parent’s choice and a son to carry on the family name.”

“I do understand, you know,” Albus said, his voice soft. “You were the heir to a pure-blood family. There were a thousand years of wizarding ritual flowing through your blue-blooded veins. I was just Harry Potter’s worthless middle kid. Queer. Shit at magic. I wasn’t good at Quidditch like James. I wasn’t artistic like Lily. It didn’t matter what _I_ did. There were expectations on you that I couldn't ever compete with. Expectations that you dutifully fulfilled.”

Scorpius stood then. He rubbed his long, gnarled fingers over his face and Albus could see that his words had hit home. Al knew that he wasn’t being fair on ‘Pius. He’d been a loyal and very caring husband to Cecily despite their marriage being an arranged one. 

Their long summer days diving and dancing through the sky belonged to another lifetime. Al shook his head. “I’m an old man,” Albus said. “Living in the past. Forget I said anything.”

Albus remembered their long summer nights too. He remembered the fiery warmth of Scorpius’s nude body as they had lain together in the woods, the final rays of sunshine curling over their bodies as it set behind the horizon. 

He remembered the silky hardness of ‘Pius’s cock as it had frotted against his own. 

He remembered the small, stuttering breaths that Scorpius had made in the moments before he had come and Albus remembered the feeling of wrapping his fingers through Scorpius’s blond hair as his best-friend’s hot, wet lips tugged his orgasm from him. 

Albus remembered how he had needed to bite down on his hand to stop himself from crying out Scorpius’s name. 

Albus had wanted to tell the world. 

He’d wanted to call Scorpius his boyfriend and shout their love from the rooftops. 

Scorpius had refused though. His betrothal to Cecily Arnoult, a distant French cousin had already been announced in _The Prophet_. Their marriage ceremony was set to take place in the Autumn, after Hogwarts finished and Albus was due to be the best man. 

Scorpius hadn’t been brave enough to blaze a path of his own. 

The two wizards had been distant during their final few months of schooling. When Rose had asked what the matter was between them, Al had said that Scorpius was worried about his exams and his upcoming wedding. 

Albus hadn’t allowed himself to think or to consider his own future. A life without his best-friend had felt like a chasm that he’d never fill, not if he lived for a thousand years. 

He turned to look at Scorpius once more. 

Scorpius had been a good son, a good husband and his son, Orion, lived a happy, satisfied life with his American, Quidditch-playing wife. Orion didn’t care for Malfoy Manor, respectability or wizarding nobility. 

So many years had passed since Albus had stood with his best-friend in the Malfoy Chapel and watched him commit his life to a pure-blood existence that was already in its final death throes.

So many years had passed. Neither he nor Scorpius were young any longer. Their whole lives had flashed by as quickly as a childhood day flying though the August heat. 

“I’ve thought about our childhoods a lot,” Scorpius said then. His grey eyes never left Al’s own. “I had a long marriage, Albus, and Cecily and I were happy! _Satisfied!_ We had _good_ times. A beautiful son. My memories of you, though? They were always a balm. They were something that I kept close to my heart. They were my secret place. I never forgot us, Al. I loved Cecily dearly but you held my soul.” 

Tears were rolling down Scorpius’s cheeks as he spoke. His voice was low and he sounded both tired and relived. Al stood too, and he moved closer to Scorpius. He was astonished by ‘Pius’s words. He wrapped his arm around his best-friend and held him close to his body. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Albus admitted. His own cheeks were wet with tears that he’d never dared to shed before. 

Scorpius cried then and Albus wept alongside him. A mess of emotion warred within him. He grieved for Scorpius. He grieved for his best-friend’s loneliness and for the pure love that still filled his heart. He grieved for the life that they could have shared. 

“I meant what I said before: I’m here now, Scorpius. I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “We’ve got time. I’m not going anywhere,” Albus repeated. “We’re old men, ‘Pius. The world belongs to the young. Nobody would care if two aged wizards found a little comfort with each other.” He rubbed small circles into the bottom of Scorpius’s back. “Nobody would judge.”

“What about Orion?” Scorpius asked, lifting his head from Albus’s shoulder. He wiped his eyes. “I couldn’t bear to break his illusions and-”

“This Manor a big place,” Albus cut in. “Plenty of bedrooms. I can make myself scarce if needs be. Besides, what business is it of anyone else’s?”

Scorpius breathed out slowly. He was trembling, as defenceless and as vulnerable as he’d been as a young boy of eleven. A lifetime of repression, of subordination and traditions had fallen away. Albus knew his best-friend wasn’t able to speak yet. That was alright. The pair of them had time. 

So many years had passed them by already, but their lives weren't at an end just yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading xxxx


End file.
